"d-bus control interface" checkbox not available...

[slinkeepie]

Hi there,

I want to access vlc player through mpris controls in a bash script, but the dbus option ("d-bus control interface" checkbox) is not available in vlc to for me to activate I have tried everything i can thnk of, installing different versions, etc. At first I thought it may be a problem with my dbus installation, but that is looking more unlikely, it seems to check out okay. Using d-feet I notice that banshee creates its related mpris bus names on starting, and removes them on exit. I'm sure vlc would do the same too since the functionality is built in right? So why isn't it available to enable?

I tried to hunt down the dbus option for vlcrc and add it manually, but no luck there either.

If someone could please point me in the right direction I would be very happy

p.s. running mint 14 cinnamon, vlc 2.0.5

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

The D-Bus interface is started automatically when a D-Bus session is available. There is no option in the preferences.

[slinkeepie]

Ok, mystery (mostly) solved. I had to run

Code: Select all

vlc --control dbus

I can control vlc with mpris commands now.

I had tried this command line earlier, but at that time I did not know about the program d-feet (very handy), also there was no start-up message suggesting any dbus interface had been activated. It just says "main libvlc: Running vlc with the default interface. Use 'cvlc' to use vlc without interface." regardless.

I didn't notice this before either, but it seems when I start vlc without options, vlc does actually create two numerical bus names (e.g. :1.110 and :1.111), but that's it. When I start with "--control dbus", a third one appears (e.g. :1.112), as well as the expected mpris interface "org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.vlc" and a unique instance of it (e.g. org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.vlc-4642). And it is only then I have somewhere to send the remote commands to.

Is this how it works for everyone? How can I add "--control dbus" automatically on every startup. I could not find a place for command-line options in the preferences...